Don't Eat the Leftovers
by Khaos Theori
Summary: It was then that she heard it. Laughter. There was no joy behind it; it was cold and unfeeling. She didn't have to wonder where it was coming from, the shaking hand covering her mouth made it obvious enough. A bright flash lit up the second monitor before the screen went dark. Immediately after, the world began to shake and rumble as if it too were in on the joke.


Disclaimer: Any material used from Resident Evil [Character Design Influence], There Will Be Blood and Taxi Driver [Cast/Quotes], Songs and/or Artist [Lyrics]…do not belong to me. All else [specific: characters/setting/story details/title] are mine.

A/N: The spotlight will be on a number of OCs, who are the main focus of this story. Also, DEtLs story will tie into Resident Evil in some shape or form. I haven't decided on which characters will make an appearance in DEtL, yet, but I do have ideas for OCs whose character designs have been influenced by RE. Also, the world of DEtL will have a sort of Mad Max/Fallout: New Vegas feel going for it.

Violence: DEtL is influenced by a horror story, which is filled with violence and is essentially a thriller; so yeah, there is plenty of that.

Moodsetter: [Placed only at the beginning of a chapter.] Is a song, or one of many songs, that played a part in a chapters' creation. If you wish to know what frame of mind I was in when I wrote a specific chapter, have a listen...or, if you don't, skip it. _Outro songs_ are just whatever bit of music I believe suits the ending to a chapter.

In-Story Symbolism Guide:

1. Beginning of a Memory

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2. End of a Memory

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3. [_Actions or Voices spoken through, or emanating from, electronic devices will be bracketed and in italics_]

4. **_A Character's Thoughts Are In Bold Italics._**

5. **A Character's Dreams Are In Bold.**

_Enjoy!_

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**Don't Eat the Leftovers**

Chapter 1

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_Moodsetter: "Warmachines" – by Daturah_

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Body Shivers. Hands and feet twitch. Eyes roll behind heavy lids. Throat chokes. Mouth coughs.

**_Alive._**

If the air in her lungs weren't proof enough, she'd believe the sensations to be a cruel tease of hope. The right side of her body is flaring excruciatingly hot in some places and completely numb in others. Hoping for the best, she opens her eyes and immediately wishes she hadn't; on the floor, in front of her, are bodies.

"Are they dead...?" she croaks.

One can only guess, seeing as how not all of them were _whole_ and none of them moving. Her back and neck were stuck in a odd position, leaning up against a corner section of a large room. The area on the opposite side of her is destroyed, as if done by something that was large and had a desperate desire to get in. The cold night air, taking advantage of the situation, had complete reign of the ruins she laid within. A spike of pain in her right-hand side causes her to close her eyes and become overtaken by a sudden flash of memories.

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_["…AAIIINNNNAGE! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry, I'm so sorry. Here: if you have a milkshake... and I have a milkshake... and I have a straw; there it is, that's the straw, see? Watch it. And now my straw reaches acrooooss the room... and starts to drink your milkshake: I... drink... your... milkshake! [slurps] I drink it up!"] _

"Ha!" a feminine voice laughs.

_[Eli: "Don't bully me, Daniel!"]_

The same voice snorts. "Get him, Daniel." she says, now leaning forward in her chair.

_[Daniel [roars] picks up Eli and tosses him on the ground]_

"Oh, no." she whimpers, in false sympathy.

The view is directed towards a bowl of popcorn, as a hand reaches in and grabs a handful. The view then raises up toward a sky-light in the ceiling, and is followed by the sound of crunching and swallowing. **_A red moon, now I wonder what that could mea-_** Someone screaming redirects her focus back onto the flat screen.

_[Daniel: "[screams] did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli?! I am the Third Revelation! I am who the Lord has chosen!"]_

_[Daniel begins throwing bowling balls at Eli]_

_[Daniel: "Because I'm smarter than you, I'm older-"]_

_[Eli: "I'm your old friend, Daniel-"]_

_[Daniel: "And because I'm not a false prophet, you sniveling boy. I am the Third Revelation! I am the Third Revelation! I told you I would eat you! I told you I would eat you up!"]_

_[Daniel chases Eli]_

_[Eli: "We're family! We're brothers! We're brothers! Daniel please forgive me, I beg you-"]_

_[Daniel: "That's it, that's it..."]_

_[Daniel bludgeons Eli to death with a bowling pin. The butler hears the noise]_

_[Butler: "Mr. Daniel?"]_

[_Daniel sits down on the floor, panting, then finally responds_]

[_Daniel: "I'm finished!"_]

Her body vibrates with silent laughter.

Suddenly an alarm, emanating from a row of monitors at her desk, catches her ear and she moves towards them. On the control desk there are several screens displaying footage of locations both inside and outside of the building.

Monitor 1: [_on the screen a large vehicle, followed by a smaller one, is shown screeching to a halt at a garage door entrance to what appeared to be a warehouse. Car doors are thrown open as men and women, dressed in protective gear and armed to the teeth, exit them and run to either side of the door. All together there are seven; looking anxious and ready to kill. Two men speak with each other, making hand gestures in regards to certain directions. Eventually one of them takes two similarly clad individuals, one male and one female, and makes his way around the corner of the building. The others return to the largest vehicle, as if to retrieve something from the back of it._]

Monitor 2: [_they were there in record time, one of them already planting a device of some kind on the outer east-side wall._]

It was then that she heard it. Laughter. There was no joy behind it; it was cold and unfeeling. She didn't have to wonder where it was coming from, the shaking hand covering her mouth made it obvious enough. A bright flash lit up the second monitor before the screen went dark. Immediately after, the world began to shake and rumble as if it too were in on the joke.

Not even half a second later, she felt intense heat on the right-hand side of her body and then…

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They'd found her. Again. And just as before, here she was waking up and trying to put the pieces back together…again. She didn't know how long she'd been out but given the fact that she could remember almost everything about her life, her name and early life not included, meant that she was right on schedule. She attempted to sit upright.

"Damn!Shit!Fuck!" she shouts, as the large and offending object stuck in her breast plate made its self known. Looking down, she is stunned by what she sees.

"Well aren't you just the cutest thing to ever pierce my heart?" she cooed. She wraps her fingers around it and grips it tightly in preparation to pull it out, but remembers disdainfully what would follow after such an action. Not yet ready for that, she releases her hold on it and repositions her arms to a fold behind her head. Staring down at her new weapon, a smile begins to tug at her lips.

"Awe," her eyes lift to the collapsed ceiling above. "…love at first sight?" burning with desire, her eyes beg her to return them to the beautiful craftsmanship. She can only see the hilt, but its enough to make her wonder where her [the blade's] sister currently was. She doesn't remember how she came about this sudden bit of knowledge.

"But then again, maybe it was something I ate?"

She scans her immediate surroundings and her eyes land on a body laying on the ground not too far from herself. Half its head is gone. She reaches back with one of her hands and searches her scalp. A wide and circular scar could be felt on the back of her head, still in the process of healing. The soreness of it forces her to clamp her eyes shut.

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…a person leaning over a table, committedly cleaning and polishing two swords, one at a time. The sound of a door slamming shut somewhere nearby, causes the hands to stop there obsessive routine.

The intruder is barely within sight.

"You said 'Ten more minutes, Cas' and here I am, " a female voice says, then punches her right fist into the nearest hard surface available to her; the timer on her wrist watch going off as her hand remains against the side of the wall. "…exactly ten minutes later!"

The person shows no sign of hearing her.

"For fuck's sake, Sadao, you're the only one left who isn-"

A masculine hand lifts one of the blades up into artificial light and a male voice quietly, and softly, asks "Are you ready, Dote?" Dote shines brightly for a nanosecond, but is otherwise non-responsive. A wave of satisfaction surges through him as he lowers Dote back down onto the table and reaches for the other sword, lifting it up in the same manner as he did Dote. Contemplation overcomes satisfaction. "Always the last one; aren't you, D-"

"Sadao!" Cas yells.

Sadao looks over in Cas' direction; he can see his reflection in a mirror, standing upright in front and to the side of her, his expression clearly showing how much he disliked his "alone time" being disrupted. He was in his mid 40s, 5'11" in height, of medium build, tanish skin, bald, and had brown eyes. Cas was in her early 30s, 6' in height, lithe, light brown in skin color, had straight black hair that reached down to just below her shoulders; but the most important feature were her eyes. Her irises were a dark blood-red storm, contained by a black ring. He'd only known her for a few weeks, but what she was exactly...still eluded him. Nevertheless, he refused to be intimidated by her. Only when Cas' discomfort under his gaze was made apparent in her stance, did he redirect it back to the blade in his hand and resume his earlier practice.

"Ten more minutes, Cas."

A door slamming open against a wall and the sound of cleaning, served as the end to their discussion.

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Again she looks at the body and the state it is in. "Ugh." A frown gradually becomes the dominating expression on her face; she doesn't like thinking of herself as a _zombie_. She inspects the rest of her body for any more damage. Her clothes? Gone.

**_Perhaps lost in the fire?_**

Her right leg, right arm, and a few fingers on her right hand looked brand new and unscathed. The pain in her right side was dissipating, the burned flesh renewing itself.

**_Good, because there doesn't appear to be any available candidates here._**

She recognized Sadao from the footage displayed on the second monitor; the device he and his unit had placed on the east-side wall couldn't have been responsible for this level of destruction. It was very unlikely that anyone but herself would have survived the blast.

She grimaces and rubs her eyes with her left hand. "D…Dana? Diane? Destruction? Damnation? Damnit!" she shouts…and then sighs. "Well that wasn't very helpful, now was it?" Sitting upright, this time ignoring the pain in her chest, she begins to look around her. Not seeing it right away, she lifts herself off the ground and begins her search for Dote's lost sister.

There is debris everywhere and it's then that she realizes that she may not have a whole lot of time to look for it; the fire and absence of half the building, clearly said _boom_. Despite the fact that her current residence was in an abandoned warehouse out in the desert, hundreds of miles away from civilization, it was time to find a new home. **_Scavengers would have no doubt seen the light show from miles away._** But she refused to leave without first finding Dote's sister. Maybe the other corpses, as charred as they were, could help her out?

After a good while of rummaging through the mess, she reclines on an overturned beam with her arms crossed and resting on the hilt of the blade still inside her torso. Her findings lay on the ground before her, as she goes over them.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, se-hmpf, not quite seven pounds, eh?" She doesn't bother with getting up and checking the area again. Her nose could pick up even the faintest of scents.

"I'm getting rusty." she says, her tone self-reprimanding.

Missing bodies often lead to loose ends. She doesn't like that, especially not when said bodies reappear later, alive and well, with vengeance guiding them to her door.

One body in particular takes hold of her attention. She'd found it in the basement below, hanging off of one of the wood beams. From first glance it is easy to tell that it belongs to a male. The clothing on it, what little there is of it, is covered in blood and soot, along with the rest of the corpse. She gets up and moves to kneel over him to get a better look. There were wounds on his body; the handy work of something both sharp and deadly. Too sharp and exact to place blame on her own claws. An entry wound, thin and diagonal, was found on his right-hand side...just over his ribcage. She stores that collaboration of _forgetmenots_ at the forefront of her mind, and continues her scan. Despite the damage to his body, most of the features of his face were left intact.

"Who's this guy, Sadao?" Her gaze returns to the other mans deformed skull and she closes her eyes in order to concentrate on his memories.

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…see fit to grace us with your presence and you, Caiside, save your frustrations with Sadao for later. Our mission is all that is important right now." His attention switches to the front of the vehicle. "Move out." his command directed towards the driver. Sadao silently observes the man; he was in his late 50s, tall, of average build, caucasian, bald but possessed trimmed and graying facial hair, and his eyes were blue.

The woman behind the wheel starts up the vehicle, then drives it out into the night and, soon after, the sound of a second vehicle can be heard doing the same. Up until that moment, they had been residing in a temporary basecamp they'd set up several days prior to tonight.

"Sir, forgive me for asking, but why are there so few of us? The information in the target's profile demands a proper response. Not to mention the record of failed attempts, many of which made not by us but by other organiza-"

"The point, Caiside. Get to it." the man interrupts without turning around to face her, his gaze locked on the view outside the passenger side window.

Up in the sky, partly blocked by clouds, is a red moon. It was a rarity in its own right, and the sight of it made Sadao anxious and wary of what was to come, all at once.

"Point is we don't have nearly as much fire power as we need, that would suit the threat we plan to put ourselves under. It makes no fucking sense." Caiside says, and as an afterthought. "Sir."

"The target, what little is known about it, sustains its life by _borrowing_ whatever it desires, whenever it needs it, from whomever it chooses to be its provider. As you've said, we are not the first to go after it. But we've monitored it for quite a long time. From the information gathered it has been determined to be unwise to fight it in large numbers. It's fast, cunning, and unpredictable. Damage done to it can be healed on-site at a rapid rate, making the target practically invulnerable. As for the 'why', you ask? Extra bodies only aid it; fewer bodies mean a higher probability for starving it of the parts it needs to survive an altercation with the Second Wave."

"Where is this 'Second Wave'?" Cas turns to Sadao with a questioning look. Confusion and intrigue begins to grow within him. He too was unaware of them.

"Unknown." the man replies.

"When will they arrive?" a determined Cas, asks.

"Unknown." he repeats.

Now looking tired and less resistant to the bullshit being force-fed to her, Cas loses the fight in her voice. "What _do_ you know?"

"I know that once we arrive at our destination that two things will happen; one, the target will be forced into a dormant state to recover from our assault on it. Two, during such time, the Second Wave will act. That is if and only if, the target is less than normally active." he concludes.

Cas' face takes on a bored expression. "None of us, the 'First Wave', an assortment of mercs no less, are expected to survive until then." It wasn't a question. They were fodder. Sadao knew this and had little doubt Cas knew it too. Perks of the trade, it was.

His lack of response further supported that bit of truth.

Caiside sits back in her seat. "So we're basically 'Diet Food', is that what your telling me?"

Finally he looks to her, as a smirk appears on his face. "It's the quality that counts. Not the quantity."

"…can you at least tell me, what that thing is?" she points to the tall box in the center, secured by latches on the floor, of the vehicle. It was about half her size and had a red and white umbrella logo on one side of it, while the rest of the box was black.

A frown replaces the smirk. "Quality, Cas." His gaze returns to the passenger side window, looking upward towards the red moon. "Quality…"

Cas gives up on the discussion completely. "If you say so…Boss."

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"_Mercenaries_…"

Sadao obviously didn't know what the man's name was, nor did she expect anyone else to, for that matter. Her access to the memories she collected were always limited at the start, only through time and patience would the entirety of them become open to her.

**_Boss._**

She'd never had one herself. And never would, for she believed strongly in the belief that free-will was important. She gave Boss one final look before turning away from him and to the others.

"The only good boss, is a dead one."

She knelt over a female corpse, her condition reasonably better than the rest. Her body had been found, laying on its back, further from the others and with a high powered rifle, destroyed, hanging from a strap on one of its arms. The dead womans face had dry and burned blood on its lower jaw, chin, and neck...as if it had come from the mouth. She turned the body over onto its stomach, presenting its back; it was burnt black, from the head to the heel of its feet. A significant contrast to the front of the body, which was only partially burned and still retained flesh, along with most of its clothing intact. She looked up. Only a small part of the sky-light section of the ceiling remained.

**_A sniper, eh?_**

She looked back at the dead woman, then leaned down and positioned her mouth next to its crispy ear. "Did you have a nice fall?!" after a pause, she stands back up and returns to her seat on the metal beam.

**_I guess not._**

The remaining corpses possessed no identifiable markers and so she disregarded them completely. She rises off of the beam and walks over to the west-side wall. It was furthest from the brunt of the explosion and in a better state than the rest of the warehouse. A broken window with scorch marks ringing the outline of it, stood out as she approached the wall. Examining the scene, there are four windows; two cracked on either end of the wall and two broken ones in the middle. One of the two broken windows, on the right-hand side, has glass spread and scattered out in front of it. It too has scorch marks, them being noticeably more intense on its left side and eating up the space between it and the second broken window. The second window also has glass on the floor in front of it, but far less. The space between it and the two windows flanking it is seared black. Her right hand moves to her forehead as another bout of images cascade through her mind's eye.

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…Cas charges past Sadao and through the destroyed wall. Sadao, and another man, follow up at the rear both decking a pair of night-vision goggles. A _thoomp_ sound can be heard as Cas fires her M32 grenade launcher at the target, who is pushing itself up from a knocked over position off of a control desk. Sadao quickly pushes his goggles up to his brow; blocking the view of the other man when he fails to do the same. A second later, the grenade hits and the resulting explosion sends the target flying backward, in a blaze of fire and smoke, on a collision course with the floor behind it. It hits the ground, rolling feet over head off into the darkness.

"Are you crazy?! I could've been permanently blinded!" The man had stepped in front of Sadao, and was now hunched over rubbing his eyes.

The target, still lit up by the fire covering its body, is only visible for a few more seconds before the fire mysteriously dies out. All three of them forget to put on their night-vision goggles as they stare into the dark.

"A fuckn' grenade launcher…" a raspy and upset voice curses.

"Did you hear tha-"

"Silence." Cas cuts off the other man, as she lowers her goggles over her eyes. She then swings the M32 over onto her back, exchanging it for her UTS-15. Cas shoulders it, cocks it, and scans the room for the target. "Come out, come out, where ever you ar-" The sound of glass crunching draws her shotgun to the left and she fires it twice, each round following the other in quick succession. The only damage done, is to that of one overly curious rat. She waits. She waits some more. She gets tired of waiting and makes a move to switch back to her grenade launcher. Sadao reaches out and stops her hand from connecting with it. Cas narrows her eyes at him and shrugs his hand off her, but does not bother to complete her previous action.

Sadao signals for them to move forward, back to back, into the last known location of the target. Their part of the job was to secure a path way for the Boss and his Big Bang Theory, aka BBT, which the white coats hypothesized would either kill the target or incapacitate it long enough for the Second Wave to finish it off.

Cas stops just before they reach the edge of the hole created by her M32, she turns to the man beside Sadao and points to the bionic ear and headphones holstered onto the man's left hip.

"Put that thing on and make yourself useful, yeah?"

To Sadaos' and Cas' surprise, he does so without a fuss and patches their ear pieces in as he guides the listening device in a circular arch in front of him, his back to theirs. Minutes pass by in silence, until a flare of noise spikes on the Ear.

"What was that?" Cas asks.

"Wait." He turns the dial on the Ear up a notch, increasing its volume by a fraction.

["_…is it really…"_] a male voice could be heard saying.

"I think he's talking to someone." He quickly says.

"It looked like a female to me." Cas sounds unsure and confused.

He raises the volume slowly, the words being spoken becoming clearer and clearer by the second.

["_…is there really anybody out there…"_]

The sound had dimmed at the beginning and end, so he turns the Ear up some more.

[_"What little life that you had just died."_]

"…the fuck?" This time he sets the volume to max.

[_"I'm gonna be the one that's takin over."_]

"Powerman…?" Cas asks, hesitantly.

[_"NOW THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE WHEN WORLD'S COLLIDE!"_]

Suddenly, the sound was not just coming through their ear pieces, but was now being loudly broadcasted throughout the entire building. Sadao and Cas hurriedly remove their ear piece, both of them now disoriented; Cas more so than Sadao.

On instinct, Sadao turns around just in time to see the target slam the other man's head into its knee and smile as it is rewarded with a replying crunch. It drops his body and throws a left hook at Sadao. He ducks it, and while crouched, attempts to punch the target in the noticeably burned and wounded right knee-cap. It twirls away from his attack, lowering itself to the ground, simultaneously kicking the feet out from underneath Cas, causing her to fall backwards. Sadao is forced to move back, in order to avoid a collision with Cas' descent. Just before her body makes contact with the ground, the target catches and grips hold of the neck-line of Cas' bullet-proof vest, lifting Cas in the direction of the hole with the intent to throw. Immediately, Sadao jumps up off the floor and kicks both of his feet outward and against the targets chest. The force is enough to break its hold on Cas and send it falling over the edge and into the hole. Sadao's back lands on Cas' stomach, forcing the air out of her lungs. He flips off his back and onto his feet…

"Sadao, wait!"

...and pounces off the edge, in an instant. He could barely hear Cas' echoing plea as he unsheathes Dote, mid-air, and aims its point in a downward angle at the target, who has yet to hit the floor below. When its back hits the ground hard, the force of the impact is powerful enough to send its feet up and over its head. Sadao's left hand grips tighter onto Dote's hilt, as the palm of his right presses down hard on the bottom of Dote.

[_"WHAT YOU GONNA DO BABY, BABY!"_]

As if sensing him, it uses the momentum of the impact by rolling off its back, onto its shoulders, and places both of its hands on the ground before launching itself out of Sadao's way. Half a second later, Sadao's katana stabs deep into the spot where the targets head would've been, if it had not moved when it did. He pulls Dote out of the ground, switching from a crouched position to an upright one, and stares into the abyss; he lowers his goggles and sure enough, it too was staring back at him. The target charges;

[_"NOW THIS IS WHAT IT'S LIKE WHEN WORLD'S COLLI-_] the music cuts off, its echoes swallowed up by a small explosion.

…he sidesteps while slashing upward, cutting off the pinky, ring, and middle finger of its right hand. It screams. Sadao swings Dote at the target in a downward stroke; it quickly steps forward and shifts its weight onto one foot, simultaneously kicking the other into the direction of Sadao's mid-section. Sadao sees it coming and moves to block it with the hilt of his sword. _Foot_ connects with _hilt_ and Sadao, now sliding backwards, immediately switches his stance to one more appropriate to combat against his opponents' strength. He can still feel the vibrations, transferred from Dote, travel up his arms; he stomps the heel of his right foot once, in order to dissipate them.

Sadao hears its snort of laughter and watches as it slowly walks into the light shining brightly threw the hole in the basement ceiling. The music had ended long ago, after the sound of a grenade going off echoed loudly from above. Cas only brought a shotgun and a grenade launcher, none of which could properly aid him down here. He figured she was looking for a way in that the creature wouldn't immediately notice. His thoughts return to it, once it stopped its advancement inside the moonlight.

**_Female._**

The state of the woman before him is ragged in appearance, as the clothes on her, blackened by fire and smoke, hang off her body. She was 6'2" to his 5'11", and lithe in form. Starting from her right-hand side, more than half her body is charred black; one would think her skin were made of bark, if not for the contrast of burned and un-burned flesh. Her face, _good_ and _evil_…yin and yang; one side charred and the other ashen gray, as her midnight hair, what was left of it, hung in disarray over her face and stopping just below her waist line. One of her hands had a full set of black claws, while the other, suffering the loss of three of its digits, had only two fingers with claws left; each _talon_ looking as if they'd never been used. Her right pant leg, starting from the knee and down is missing, exposing a muscular and charred leg...it looked built for speed.

Its sudden movement forward, snaps his attention back to her face.

What little that did remain of her face proclaimed a beauty, masked in hatred for him and all else who intruded in on her territory. Her irises, pitch-black, felt as though they were dissecting him, determining his worth. Her mouth opens into a sly grin, revealing two rows of pain and agony.

"How many?" she asks.

Shock suddenly overwhelms him, but he manages to keep it from appearing in his expression. Sadao hadn't been made aware that the creature could form words. He raises a curious brow in question.

"The _tachi_; how many lives has it taken?" her voice is rough and as hard as granite.

He wonders whether or not he should answer, but decides nothing would be lost if he did, "…after tonight, thirteen hundred and forty-six." he states.

"You remember the exact number of kills?" she looked and sounded impressed.

"No." The red moonlight, coming from the hole above, flashes off of Dote. "But she does."

Black eyes hone in on the weapon. "What's her name?" her voice is barely above a whisper, the desire in it making her intentions more than obvious.

As if to answer her question, the hilt of his sword starts to vibrate; this time of its own accord. A foreboding feeling _creeps_ up on him as he looks to Dote. He takes off his night-vision goggles with his freehand; the vibration gradually becoming more intense in the other. A pulling sensation, in the direction of the woman, can be felt coming from Dote.

**_Ready to leave me, are you?_**

"Do you believe in fate?" he suddenly asks quietly, still starring at Dote.

She scoffs. "I believe in circumstance."

The vibration of the hilt increases in intensity, traveling up the blade and making it glow hot, its color matching that of the red moon in the sky.

"Circumstance…" he whispers.

"Her name?!" she shouts, impatiently.

He looks to her. "…is often tied to fate."

"Enough!" She braces her body into a runners start, "I have my own ways of finding out what I want to know." then takes off after him at an ungodly speed.

Sadao brings his freehand to the hilt of his tachi, squeezes hard and just as she is on him, let's himself fall backwards. She follows right after him, reaching for his head. Once his back hits the ground, he plants both of his feet against her chest, then plunges Dote into her breast-plate, through her heart, and throws her back with the use of his feet. Dote remains inside her as she lands on the ground, several feet away from him; he can hear her cries of pain as she scrambles in the dark.

Sadao rises to a crouch, unsheathes his katana, and scans the room for her.

**_There._**

The creatures' body is half in the moonlight, on her hands and knees, chocking and coughing against the dirt floor.

He continues to raise himself up all the way and limps over to her, sword extended outward. On his way to her, he can feel a subtle vibration beginning in his katana. He looks to it.

**_You, as well, Dose?_**

Sadao, standing over and to the side of her head now, lifts his sword high. Her coughing fit ceases abruptly. Sadao's arms make to move in a downward stroke and then he….feels blood pouring from his nose.

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"Fuuuck!" she wheezes, as she uses one of her hands to clamp its fingers over her nose.

**_Not Good._**

The blood coming from her nose was a sign that she was concentrating on his memories too hard. Her actual state of health was having an influence on the accuracy of Sadao's memory. At least now she knew what happened to her head and how Dote ended up inside her; more importantly she now possessed the name of Dote's sister. She couldn't continue reviewing his memory for much longer, it was unwise. But she wanted to know the whereabouts of his katana. The fingers of her freehand drummed against the hilt of the tachi still stuck inside her heart.

"Dose..." she says, lovingly.

Another trigger was needed, if she wished to continue this journey down memory lane. She looks over to the massive hole in the wood floor, and spots a separate hole nearby. The itch of another memory begins to scratch at the back of her mind.

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"Damn it, Sadao." Cas runs over to help him up. "I thought you were dead."

He couldn't understand it. He'd cut off the back part of her head, exposing her brain. And yet she was able to pick him up and throw him upward and through the basement ceiling. He was now laying on his right-hand side, facing in the direction of the hole his body had created. The sound of insane screaming and objects being thrown around could be heard coming from below.

"Caiside…call in…group 1…" he struggles to say.

"I tried, no one is answering." Her frustration with trying and failing to reach them, made clear in her voice.

A feeling of dread and suspicion infects his state of calm. Sadao, with the help of Cas, rises to his feet favoring his left leg, which currently had a chunk of wood lodged into it. Cas with her UTS-15 out, aims it at the hole leading to the basement and the new one made by Sadao's forced exit. Sadao, with his katana still gripped tightly in his right hand, moves to wrap his left hand around the chunk of wood protruding from his leg.

Just then, a crazed demoness bursts out of the hole she threw Sadao through, crawls forward a bit and then gets up on both of her feet, running directly towards Sadao. Cas fires a few rounds at its legs before her shotgun registers as empty and she has to reload, the creature seconds away from _its_ target.

Sadao swings his sword diagonally, she ducks and as she rises back up, wraps both of her arms around his waist in a bear hug. She squeezes him so violently that it causes him to yell out in pain and drop Dose. Cas, her UTS-15 reloaded, fires round after round into the creatures right shoulder. Sadao's eyes look directly into the eyes of the woman holding him; they're delirious, crazed, and unnervingly focused on him, as they flinch with each shot delivered to its shoulder.

When she can't seem to take any more of the assault on her arm, she jumps backwards, still holding Sadao, off and into the hole she came through. On the way down, Sadao slams down both of his elbows on either side its neck, forcing it to let him go. They land a small distance away from each other; he on his knees and her on her ass. Sadao tries to move, but quickly finds out that his legs are dead numb, his knees shattered; the hands splayed out before him are the only thing preventing his face from meeting the ground. His eyes search, left then right, and lastly up towards the hole he fell through.

**_Dose._**

Claws on his head and then hot breath on his face can be felt as the woman lifts him up off his destroyed knees, his feet now several inches from the ground. He can feel the hilt of Dote pressing against his chest. A feeling of defiance and acceptance begins to fluctuate throughout his entire body as he looks into her eyes. They too are searching but, unlike him, for something already within its grasp. Her talons scratch and dig into his scalp; he can vaguely remember what Boss said to him and Cas on the way here.

**_"…whatever it desires, whenever it needs it, from whomever it chooses…"_**

A flash of pain brings him back to the present. He re-focuses on her eyes.

"Do you…believe in fate?" he asks, resignedly.

Her only answer is to open her jaws widely and bring his head forward.

Sadao closes his eyes, for the last time.

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...)[^](

* * *

A solemn mood overtakes her; she was intrigued by his character while he was still alive and his fortitude in battle had won her respect. She was a little surprised to feel comfort in the knowledge that a part of him would always be with her. The damage he dealt to her brain destroyed her rationale and left only her most basest of desires. In her act to rehabilitate herself, she'd consequently imprinted his muscle and cognitive memories into both her mind and body. His own body laid there with the others…amongst the rubble.

**_Could a warrior, such as he, ask for a better tomb stone?_**

The remaining walls around her were still burning and in a state of collapse and would in time, fall altogether.

**_I don't think so._**

She looks away from the hole and walks towards Boss' body to kneel over it. The _forgetmenots_ cut into his corpse, call to her own memory.

* * *

)[^](...

* * *

"…knew this was going to happen or at least had expected it to, Caiside." a man says, condescendingly.

The sound of a shotgun cocking echoes from above.

"You're right, I did know." Laughter starts. "But what I didn't expect, _Tricky Dick_…was for the desire to live to burn so strongly within me, when that time _did_ come." Caiside's laughter ends abruptly. "Get out of my way, Boss…or better yet, stay in it and find out wha-"

A resounding shot, then a bullet piercing the wood floor and hitting the dirt flooring of the basement, causes her to snap out of her crazed stupor, and bring forth her calculative mind. She hones in on the voices above her as she lifts herself off of the dead body beneath her. Her skull, its regeneration rate aided by the dead man, is whole again. She stops mid-way when she notices, and feels, the tachi stuck in her torso. Her expression changes to one of annoyance.

**_Not, agaaiinn..._**

"If you really want to live so badly, throw your weapons to me." Boss says.

Silence.

"Now!" he demands.

The clanking of metal reaches her ear.

"Move in and guard that hole." he orders.

A scuffle of feet grows louder, until they stop just above her.

"Thanks to the eyes and ears above," he pauses, and then continues. "…we know that the target is currently _involved_ and requires ample time to recover from its wounds; perfect opportunity to…capture it."

"…the Second Wave." Caiside says, her words submerged in realization and then soaked in disbelief as she asks, "Why haven't you killed me yet?"

"You are as you said before…_Diet Food_."

In anger, she states, "You said capture." then demands to know, "What about BBT?!"

"Last resort."

**_Merceneries…_**

A man peaks into the hole where she is knelt over Sadao. She picks up Sadao, then throws his lifeless body through the hole, it breaking more wood as it hits the man gazing through it. While he is thrown back in the collision, she jumps up to a wood beam and bursts through the wood floor behind the second man, who'd become distracted, and snaps his neck. She then turns to the man on the floor, still fumbling with Sadao's corpse and makes a move toward him. But is made to stop when a bullet pierces her left thigh, and puts her down on one knee. She looks up and sees a female sniper, reloading and making adjustments to her rifles aim. Another gunshot rings out and brings her focus onto what's happening nearby on the ground floor.

A woman diving and then rolling as bullets try to hit her can be seen; she stops when she reaches a weapon pile and picks up a sword, right in front of a man who is reloading his gun. Just as he chambers the first round, she jumps up swinging wildly with unpracticed hands. Some cuts hit, while others miss, but she is otherwise able to slash his gun-hand, destroying his grip on it. A sniper round misses her head and clips his right ear. She follows that up with a stab to his rib-cage, pulls it out and turns back to the pile on the floor, paying no mind to the dying man behind her. Like a machine, she retrieves a second weapon from the gun pile, a grenade launcher.

"Fucking hell…" she says, in recognition, as she watches the woman point it up towards the ceiling.

It's aimed directly at the general area of where the sniper is located when she fires it multiple times, in a line starting from there to the edge of the ceiling on the east-side wall. Caiside then puts her guns over her shoulder, grabs hold of the katana, and runs in the direction of the west-side wall at a break-neck speed, leaving the east in a state of anarchy and chaos. Once the sound from the explosions lessens a little, a loud mechanical voice can be heard.

[_…EIGHT…SEVEN…_]

"Shitshitshitshit!" she begins to turn in order to head off in the same direction as Caiside, but is stopped when the man, no longer on the ground struggling with Sadao's corpse, tackles her.

[_EE….TWO…_]

The sight of Caiside preparing to leap upward towards a window is the last thing she sees before she suddenly goes deaf, blind, and then loses all sense of up and down. But the one _main_ thing she is aware of, after her head hits something hard and unyielding, is the hellish inferno eating away at her flesh.

* * *

...)[^](

* * *

Her right hand with all of its digits intact, reaches back to behind her head as she walks back to the broken window.

**_That explains the slight amnesia. The condition of Boss' corpse. The east-side._**

She moves to peak outside of the window and finds the missing amount of glass spread-out on the other side of the window. Her night-vision zeros in on the ground. Imprinted in the mud beneath the glass are feet and hand prints, made solid and vivid by the cold night air.

**_The missing body._**

"Lucky number seven…" she says, suffered humiliation, present in her voice.

**_She has Dose._**

"Hmm, maybe not so lucky…"

The sun was rising; the red moon giving up its place in the sky. Her investigation complete, she decides that now would be a fine time to pull Dote out of her heart. She heads towards the basement; the act would require her mind and body to shut down as they repaired themselves. The basement, soon to be completely covered by debris, would be the most secure place for her at the moment. Once she was settled in the darkness below, next to her vault of _goodies_, she wraps both of her hands around Dote's hilt. And hesitates.

"Fuck it."

She unceremoniously pulls the tachi out all the way, in a roar of pain; barely a second later her eyes demand to be sealed shut. The feeling of her body threading itself back together can be felt throughout her. But...even though she fully expected it to happen, she fights it, enjoying the struggle. It was in her nature to not back down. To _challenge_. In the end, though, this was a battle with herself and, altogether, not the one she desired at the moment. So she lets her consciousness drift away and dreamed of sister's uniting, of an empty grenade launcher held within shaking hands, and of straws reaching into milkshakes with red and white umbrellas...yet to be taken from dead and cold fingers.

* * *

**"...do you love me or," she reaches down to unshackle the remaining metal brace, still cuffed to one of the womans' hands. "...do you _love_ me?" she quietly** **finishes, as she slowly rubs the wrists of each hand and rests her head against the other womans' forehead. **

**Pitch-black eyes look up into her own, and seem to be troubled as the woman does her best to remain angry, but then eventually soften when she finally answers. "I-"**

Cas shoots upwards in her seat and grips tightly onto the wheel, she was so tired that she'd nearly driven herself off the road. **_That's the second time I've fallen asleep. _**she thinks while yawning. Her eyes close, and she immediately feels a bit of vertigo.**_ That dream._ **Cas shakes her head in annoyance, and reopens her eyes. **_Of course it was a dream, I'm tired and I've been driving for hours now without a single break. _**Cas could barely recall the details of the dream as she looks out the driver-side window; off into the distance, rays of sunlight could be seen clawing its way through the darkness. Her gaze returns to the cracked and sand covered road in front of her. **_If I can keep this up, I should be back at HQ in a few days time. Then all I have to do is sell a good enough story so they don't kill me, collect my payment, and disappear for a few months. _**She couldn't afford to skip out on the money; even after everything had gone to hell, it was still the way of the world.

"Piece of cake." she says, with absolute zero confidence.

Caiside had never faced anything like what she fought last night. And when considering where she came from, that was saying a lot. **_It couldn't have possibly survived...could it?_** Another yawn breaks free, and soon the only thing that matters to her is finding a nice spot to lay down and rest. She reaches over to the collection of cd's she'd found in the glove compartment, of the smaller of the two vehicles her team arrived in, and tries to find something that will keep her from crashing into the nearest sand dune. After breaking each and every bit of garbage her hand touched, she moves to the radio and turns it on to the only station available, this far out into the desert. Cas manages to tune into a song that seemed to have just started.

["_All the animals come out at night..."_]

_**Just what mama likes.**_ She relaxes back into her seat as the music continues to play.

["_...dopers, junkies, sick, venal."_]

Despite her best efforts, Cas once again begins to slowly close her eyes and drift off the road.

["_Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."_]

End of Chapter 1

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_Outro Song: Black City by Troublemakers_

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A/N: Well, I hope you, whoever you are, enjoyed the first chapter of DEtL. Whether or not there will be more submissions, depends entirely on the response it gets in the review section. And, just to be clear, I'm referring to the context of the reviews and not the number of them. If enough people demand that I continue, then I will.


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